The Same Answer Should Come Back by Phone, Text and Email

A roofer who answers a question well on the phone may answer it differently in a text, and the difference often matters more than the answer itself. Before you choose between two or three St. Louis roofers, ask each one the same handful of questions by phone, by text and by email, then compare what comes back. The point is not to catch anyone out. It is to see whether the company gives one answer or several, and whether that answer is the one you will be held to on the day the crew arrives.

Roofer comparison

Start with three or four questions that have a number or a name as the answer. Good choices are the crew size on your roof each day, the shingle line and color named in the bid, the date the crew expects to start, and the name of the person who will be on your roof most days. Phone calls tend to produce friendly answers that are rounded off. Text messages tend to produce the short version. Email tends to produce the complete version, but only if you ask for it in writing. A roofer whose three answers match is easier to plan around than one whose answers drift.

Keep the wording identical each time. If you ask about crew size by phone as "how many people on the roof," ask it the same way in the text and the email. Small changes in wording give the roofer room to answer a different question, and then the comparison is between two questions instead of two companies. Write down the exact words of each reply with the date and time, and keep the replies in one folder so you can read them side by side.

Spread the questions across a week rather than one afternoon. Some roofers answer the phone quickly and reply to email slowly, and that gap tells you something about how they will handle a warranty call or a schedule change later. A roofer who answers all three channels within a business day and gives the same figures each time is showing you how the office runs, not only what the bid says.

Watch for answers that match in substance but differ in detail. One roofer may say the crew is "usually three" on a call and write "three to four" in an email. That is not a lie, but it is a range, and a range changes what you should expect on the day. Ask the follow-up question that turns the range into a number. Which days would be four people, and who decides that on the morning of the job?

What it costs

The cost of this test is mostly time. A phone call takes a few minutes, a text takes a moment, and an email takes a short paragraph, but spread across two or three roofers and a week, it can take an evening of your attention. Compare that with what a wrong answer can cost. In St. Louis, a roof date that moves because a crew was booked for two jobs at once can leave your house open through a storm front, and the rebooking may land in the middle of hail season when every other homeowner is calling too.

There is also a cost on the bid side. If one roofer quotes a lower number but gives a vaguer answer about crew size or start timing, the lower number may be carrying hidden days. A bid that assumes a three-person crew on a steep roof is not comparable to a bid that assumes a five-person crew that finishes in fewer days. Price is only comparable when the labor behind it is described the same way, and the three-channel test is one of the cheapest ways to find out whether that description holds steady.

Finally, there is the cost of an answer nobody wrote down. If a roofer says something by phone that never reaches the written bid, you have no record to point to later. Put any figure that matters into an email or a text yourself, with the date, and ask the roofer to confirm it in reply. A one-word "yes" is still a written answer. Silence after two requests is also information, and it belongs in your comparison.

What to ask

Use the same short list with every roofer, in the same order. Ask how many people will be on the roof on a typical day, and how many on a restart after rain. Ask which shingle line and color the bid names, and whether the bundle count in the bid matches that line. Ask the date the crew expects to start if the weather holds, and what the next available date is if a freeze or a storm pushes the start back. Ask who your day-to-day contact is during the job and how you reach that person on a workday.

Add one question that depends on St. Louis conditions. Ask what the roofer does when a morning starts below freezing and the deck is still frosted. Freeze and thaw cycles here leave shingles and decking damp at dawn, and a roofer's answer about when the crew starts nailing shows how much they plan around it. A roofer who says the crew waits for the deck to dry and names the check they use is giving you something concrete to hold them to.

Ask each roofer who pulls the permit in plain words. Some roofers pull it through the city or county permit desk for your address, and some ask the homeowner to do it. Confirm which permit desk applies to your address, since the City of St. Louis and the St. Louis County suburbs handle their own paperwork. Ask whether the permit card will be posted where an inspector can see it, and who calls for the final inspection. The answer should match across the phone, the text and the email.

If the answers disagree, keep the disagreement in writing and ask each roofer to settle it in one reply. Questions to the Keys Roofing office can go to (314) 220-2333, and the written bid is the document to hold each reply against.